Step up wider union and community support

Rob Williams, Socialist Party trade union and workplace organiser

The striking Birmingham bin workers in Unite are as determined as ever to win their dispute and fight off the brutal attack on their contracts by the Labour council.

After more than 50 days of strike action, the picket line I visited on 2 May was big and vocal, as the workers reacted to the latest move by the council to up the ante. The dispute was started by the council trying to downgrade senior loaders with safety and customer service responsibilities, claiming they would be able to retrain as drivers to maintain their pay. Now the council has announced its intention to slash drivers’ pay by up to £8,000, a fifth of their income.

This has exposed the lies of Labour council leader John Cotton, that ‘no workers need lose pay’. This move, just days before talks started at ACAS, has only made it clearer what’s at stake, and if the council sticks to its plans, the dispute needs to be escalated.

The Labour council continues to hide behind the commissioners brought in by the previous Tory government and maintained by Starmer.

Strike-breaking measures

I saw for myself the dirty tactics of the council, trying to break a strike by workers fighting massive pay cuts.

There was a constant police presence, and workers showed me messages sent to agency staff warning them not to wind down their windows to talk to pickets about why they were on strike.

Outrageously, these strike-breaking measures and more are fully supported by Starmer’s Labour government, with so-called union-friendly deputy leader and former Unison NEC member Angela Rayner very much central in this attack.

Correctly, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham responded to the threat to drivers’ pay by stating: “It is no wonder Labour is increasingly not seen as the party of workers”. The cuts and austerity agenda of Labour in Westminster and local councils is one of the prime reasons for the electoral gains of right-wing Reform.

This shows why unions such as Unite must discuss seriously the need to launch a new workers’ party to provide a real alternative for workers, not the poison of Farage. Standing union-supported candidates on a pro-worker, anti-cuts programme would be a start in that direction and a vital step to back up strike action against Labour austerity.

Workers’ solidarity

The bin workers are still very much up for the fight, and see the need to build pressure on the council. The ‘mega picket’ on Friday 9 May, called by Strike Map and supported by the National Shop Stewards Network, can be another step in mobilising the wider union movement and community in support of the strikers.

But there is no more powerful force than the unions themselves, particularly the other unions in Birmingham council, as their members face the same cuts coming down the line. A national and local call for mass action and support, including a Saturday demonstration in Birmingham and more mass solidarity pickets, could raise the sights of the strikers and the wider working class in the city that a victory can be won.